The Man

A visionary & artist

Yehudi Menuhin was a rich enigma: a gentle spirit tied to an implacable will: a perfectionist who loved amateurs and young beginners; an ascetic who relished down-to-earth pleasures.

A visionary who got things done.

A man who could not forget, perhaps never quite came to terms with, the extraordinarily gifted child he had been and, in some ways, remained.

An artist who believed the music he played to be, quite literally, a form of human healing, out of which we might make peace with ourselves.

A timeline of his life

From child prodigy to one of the 20th century’s finest and most celebrated artists, Yehudi Menuhin’s legacy lives on. In 2016, the centenary of his birth was celebrated by many special events and concerts (see the timeline), a BBC Four documentary film Who's Yehudi, and a highly acclaimed Warner Classics boxed set The Menuhin Century.

The Prodigy

1916

1918

1920

"When I began it was pure instinct. I had the knack, the gift, the will."

Yehudi Menuhin

1921

Birth of a sister, Yaltah

Yehudi starts violin lessons with Sigmund Anker (lasting two years)

First performance at a pupils’ concert

1923

Lessons begin with Louis Persinger

"I was, in some ways, the pupil of Persinger’s abandoned dreams."

Yehudi Menuhin

1924

Yehudi’s public concert début. Aged seven, he plays Bériot’s Scène de Ballet accompanied at the piano by Louis Persinger

1925

LFirst full length recital (with Persinger at the piano) in San Francisco

"The lad, looking smaller than ever in his vast surroundings, filled them with his personality and his genius. The tremendous audience, much as it knew what to expect, was amazed and inflamed at his performance."

Alexander Fried

1926

New York recital début at the Manhattan Opera House

First concerto performance (Lalo’s SymphonieEspagnole) with the San Francisco Orchestra conducted by Louis Persinger.

1927

First concerto concert (Beethoven) in Carnegie Hall, with the New York Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Busch

1928

First recordings for Victor

First US concert tour

"Bach he advised me to play strictly, for he said that however strong your emotional impulse may be, it should never destroy the basic pace nor twist the overall form of the piece from its architectural shape."

1933

1935

1936 - 1937

Eighteen months' sabbatical at new family home in Los Gatos, California "a blithe, young, joyful time"

1937

Gives US première of Violin Concerto by Schumann

1938

Marriage to Nola Nicholas; both his sisters get married (Hephzibah to Nola Nicholas’s brother, Lindsay)

War and Peace

1939 - 1956

1939

War in Europe

Birth of daughter Zamira

First tour of South America

1940

Australia: concerts and recordings with Hephzibah

Birth of son Krov

1941 - 1942

US enters war

Yehudi is deferred, plays for troops and makes second tour of Latin America

"I did not think that music could be played like that until long after the composer was dead"

Bartók

1943

First wartime visit to Britain

Meets and plays for Bartók and commissions solo sonata

"We request that you definitely cancel all arrangements for Menuhin concerts up to and including 13 October. His presence in Europe with fighting troops at this critical juncture of the war is essential in its effect upon their morale and most important."

General Eisenhower cables from Supreme Headquarters

1944

Tour of military bases in Alaska and Aleutian Islands

Plays for Pacific Ocean battle troops in Hawaii

(Altogether plays over 500 concerts for Allied troops during Second World War)

Meets Diana Gould, British dancer and actress, during second wartime visit to Britain

Plays in Antwerp, Brussels and Paris shortly after their liberation

Première of Bartók’s Sonata for solo violin in New York, with Bartók in the audience

1945

Plays for inaugural United Nations assembly in San Francisco

With Benjamin Britten plays for survivors of concentration camps at Belsen

Festivals and Festivities

1957

"It has taken some years for the work of Bartók to command the respect and reverence they now receive. … Little known or unknown works have in my experience always acted as a stimulus to artist, audience and connoisseur alike."

Article on new music, London "Sunday Times"

1959

Artistic Director of the Bath Festival (until 1968)

Establishes Bath Festival Orchestra and performs and records extensively with them

introduces Jacqueline du Pré, aged 16, at 1961 festival

1963

Establishes Yehudi Menuhin School in London, transferring to Surrey a year later

1965

Made honorary Knight of the British Empire (KBE)

"To be present, as I have been, at a ‘chamber music’ recital by Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, each goading the other to new heights of invention, is an experience more magical than almost any in the world. One is in the presence of creation."

1969

President of International Music Council, UNESCO (for three successive terms, until 1975)

1970

Honorary Swiss citizenship

At Windsor, conducts world première of Oliver Knussen’s Second Symphony

"People would come to me when I was walking in the streets of Moscow and shove a little piece of paper in my hand surreptitiously, just telling me how much they appreciated it."

Yehudi Menuhin

1971

Supports Russian dissidents in Moscow speech

First duet appearance with jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli

1972

Publishes essays and speeches in Theme and Variations

1973

World première of Frank Martin’s Polyptyque

1975

Conducts Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for first time (becomes their President in 1982)

1976

Plays at inaugural Bermuda Festival

1977

Foundation of Live Music Now in Britain and the International Menuhin Music Academy in Gstaad

Publishes autobiography Unfinished Journey

1978

The Music of Man television series for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

1979

Establishes Portsmouth International String Quartet Competition (later London International String Quartet Competition, the leading event of its kind)

Visits China, named first ever Western honorary professor of Beijing Conservatoire; first Chinese students permitted to leave their country to study at the Menuhin School and Menuhin Academy

Music's Ambassador to the World

1980 - 1999

1980

Performs at Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, USA

1981

Death of Hephzibah

1982

Death of his father Moshe

"Anything that one wants to do really and one loves doing, one must do every day. It should be as easy to the artist and as natural as flying is to a bird. And you can't imagine a bird saying, ‘Well, I’m tired today. I’m not going to fly.’ "

Yehudi Menuhin

1983

Conducts Sinfonia Varsovia in concert for the Pope

Foundation in Folkestone of the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists

1985

Assumes British citizenship and becomes Sir Yehudi

1987

The Queen makes him a Member of the Order of Merit (OM)

1989

Attends World Economic Forum in Davos for the first time

Conducts Messiah in the Kremlin shortly after the collapse of the Communist regime

1991

Receives Wolf Prize and addresses the Knesset in Israel

Establishment by royal decree of the International Yehudi Menuhin Foundation in Brussels

1992

Live Music Now Germany founded in Munich.

1993

Becomes a baron, The Right Honourable the Lord Menuhin of Stoke d’Abernon, OM KBE and takes his seat in the British House of Lords

1994

Launch of MUS-E in Brussels

"with an excellent black choir. Before the audience would let us leave, the choir broke quite spontaneously into some of their own traditional songs"

Yehudi Menuhin

1995

Returns to South Africa to celebrate the release of Nelson Mandela: conducts Handel’s Messiah in township outside Johannesburg

1996

Eightieth birthday year, during which he conducts more than 110 concerts

Final public appearance as a solo violinist at 40th Gstaad Festival and conducts Lehar’s The Merry Widow in celebration of his final festival

Conducts Sarajevo Peace Concert under patronage of Germany, European Commission and UNESCO

Live Music Now Austria founded in Vienna. Three further branches were founded later.